Tommy Zeigler trial plagued by 'significant' problems, report says

An investigative journalism center on Monday published a critical probe of death-row inmate William "Tommy" Zeigler's 1976 trial, finding that evidence

An investigative journalism center on Monday published a critical probe of death-row inmate William "Tommy" Zeigler's 1976 trial, finding that evidence supporting his innocence went overlooked by authorities who investigated the quadruple murder inside his Winter Garden furniture store.

The new report by students at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism comes as a judge considers Zeigler's latest request for DNA testing, an attempt to prove he did not kill his wife, in-laws and a customer 40 years ago on Christmas Eve. It also adds to a growing body of work that questions Zeigler's conviction, including a television movie and a book.

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In particular, the report examines new ballistic evidence and what would have been the testimony of two key witnesses who were never called to the trial. The students also interviewed Zeigler, now 70, three times at Union Correctional Institution near Raiford .

"The students' findings challenge, in many ways, the basic foundations of the entire prosecution," said Alec Klein, the professor who leads the award-winning, national investigative journalism center. "Given that a person's life is on the line here, facing the death penalty, I wonder how the court could justify not allowing Tommy Zeigler to go forward with the DNA testing."

The Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office has stood by Zeigler's conviction over the decades. Most recently, prosecutors opposed a pending request to have blood-stained clothing from the crime scene retested with more modern DNA techniques. At a March hearing, Assistant Kenneth Nunnelley cited two previous opinions from the Florida Supreme Court, which found that evidence about whose blood was on Zeigler's shirt wasn't enough to exonerate him.

Since Zeigler's 1976 trial, prosecutors have alleged Zeigler planned the murders because he wanted to claim his wife's insurance policies, and he shot himself in the stomach to make him seem like a victim too. Eunice Zeigler, her parents Perry and Virginia Edwards and store customer Charles Mays were killed. Zeigler argued they were attacked in a store robbery instigated by Mays.

The Medill report contends it's "practically unheard of" for a person seeking to cover up a crime to choose such a risky — even deadly — way. An analysis of the gunshot wound to Zeigler's lower torso shows he would have used his non-dominant left hand, based on the angle of the bullet, to shoot himself and did not press the muzzle to his body for stability. More often, cover-up attempts include shots to limbs, Klein said.

The report also zeroes in on two witnesses, Ken and Linda Roach, who said they drove by the store around the time of the masscre and heard 12 to 15 gunshots within four seconds. An expert interviewed in the story said it's "virtually impossible" for one person to fire a single person to fire a non-automatic weapon so quickly, lending more credibility to Zeigler's claim that he and his family were attacked by a group of people led by Mays.

The Roaches told Medill that authorites weren't intersted in their account and didn't tell them how to contact Zeigler's attorneys. One of Zeigler's trial attorneys brought up the Roach evidence in a 1986 appeal to a federal appellate court, which won Zeigler's a temporary stay from impending execution.